


burn brighter

by aetherae



Category: Kara no Kyoukai | The Garden of Sinners
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, a future where i actually update this (unsure), a love song of a fic to azaka, gen for now but that might change in the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 05:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13896864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: Azaka grows up and grows well. But some things, she never grows out of.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr may 2015, i might just start posting all my wip fic here in hopes i'll actually motivate myself to finish them. anyways-- a study in azaka post-canon i guess. why am i writing this? because I LOVE AZAKA THAT’S WHY, AZAKAAAAAAAA

As time goes by, Azaka only continues to grow. She graduates from high school, travels the world, and keeps up with the homework Touko sends, whether it’s through mail or paging or whatever else. The world grows along with her, and through time’s ceaseless march, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who would say that Azaka hasn’t grown up wonderfully, beautifully, magnificently.

She grows into a fine adult.

But she never grows out of love.

●

Azaka keeps her promise, and in the springtime courtyard of Reien Girl’s Academy with her diploma in hand, she confesses to her brother with a smile on her face. Mikiya and Shiki have already been married for two years, but her eternal rival stands a polite distance away with her infant daughter in her arms.

When Shiki meets her eye, she flashes her a thumbs-up. Azaka sticks her tongue out at her.

“So, that’s the gist of it, Nii-san. I’m in love with you. Your reply?”

“Ah… hah.” He looks the very picture of bewilderment. “You know that I’m married, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that I have a daughter?”

“Yes.”

“… And that I’m your brother?”

“Yes.” Her smile widens. To her brother’s credit, he takes everything she says in good stride, only growing in confusion and bafflement but never disgust. It’s probably one of the reasons why she loves him so much. She hopes that part of him never changes.

“Well. As long as you know.” Her dear brother still looks lost—a little awkward maybe, confused, but nothing worse than that—and when he turns to Shiki in what’s probably a silent plea for help, his wife only fixes him with a flat stare. He turns back to her, coughing slightly into his hand before smiling that same hopelessly kind, hopelessly helpless sort of smile he’s always had. “I’m afraid that I can’t return your feelings, Azaka. You’ll always be my little sister to me. But you knew that, right?”

Her heart, fluttering in her cage of a chest just moments ago, settles back into its steady staccato rhythm. It’s a comfortable sort of pounding, and one she knows well. “I knew. And that’s why I’m glad.”

Mikiya can’t help but continue to stare, and Azaka simply laughs lightly behind her hand. Some secrets might as well stay secret, she thinks, and she’ll keep this one to herself.

“So don’t pay any mind to it, alright? Just treat me the same as you always have.”

He blinks at her, surprised, and for a split second she wonders if what she said is impossible. She knew to expect the worst out of a confession like this, but as always, she can only hope for the impossible regardless.

“Yeah, I know,” Mikiya laughs, patting her head fondly. Just like that, he’s the same older brother that she’s always known, always loved. “Congratulations on your graduation, Azaka. I’m proud of you.”

From here, she can hear Mana giggling, carefree and innocent in the way children are supposed to be. As she looks back over to her and Shiki, she even sees Shiki smiling in her direction, no matter how quickly she tries to turn to hide it. Behind her, she can already hear Fujino and Shizune calling for her, smiling as they say her name.

When she looks back up at Mikiya, she beams.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL IDK SHIT ABOUT HOW SOMEONE ACTUALLY GETS INTO THE CLOCK TOWER. but if you ever thought i cared about the magi society (read: fate/) side of things boy did you think wrong. also i don’t believe for a second that azaka would quit apprenticing to touko after canon.

Not long after her graduation, Azaka packs a single suitcase and leaves Japan. Her parents are disheartened when she tells them of her plans to study abroad, but there’s no room for them to argue when she explains and shows her scholarships for several prestigious colleges across the world. She’s pleased that they aren’t surprised at all her scholarships, her good grades often being a favorite dinnertime subject when she visits, and despite their concerns, they send her off with a smile.

In truth, leaving is only partly for studying abroad. She plans to study, of course, two books for practicing English stored neatly away in her suitcase, but it’s not the academic material she’s interested in. There isn’t a college in the world that could teach her what she wants to learn because even the most prestigious university is still a facility of the normal, mundane world. Nursing, accounting, law, teaching—things you could find anywhere.

Azaka simply isn’t interested.

Honestly, Azaka leaves Japan because Touko’s homework for her involves fetching things more often than not. Whether it’s because her infamous master is too notorious to visit the location herself, or because she’s too lazy when she has others working for her, she doesn't know. What she does know is that not a day after her graduation, there's a letter in her dorm waiting for her. She shoos Shizune out of the room when she reads it, but her roommate has an all too-knowing smile as she leaves.

_Hi~, Azaka! Congratulations on graduating! I still remember being so glad to never have to wear that stuffy uniform again, but you’ve always looked cute in it. Won’t you keep it? Now that you’re done with school though, I have a **much** bigger list of things I’ll need you to look into. You don’t mind, right? Consider it training! Here’s the first batch of things I need and where to find them. I’ll send you the next list when the time is right. Until next time!_

There’s no signature at the bottom, let alone a return address, but there’s only one person who would send her a letter like this. When she takes a look at the list, Azaka sighs and starts looking for a suitcase.

_A few books I’ve been feeling nostalgic for! They should be in my old room at the Clock Tower still. Head to the British Museum, you’ll figure out the rest._ Of course it’s something ridiculous like this.

Despite her continued apprenticeship to Touko, she has little interest in the finer workings of magi society. What she has heard about it—all their rules and policies and fake high honors—already sounds ridiculous to her, and she has no desire to live in the confines of rules other people set. She can’t imagine trading one set of societal norms for another, no matter how strange and outlandish they might sound to her. It’s stupid, as far as she cares.

So Azaka Kokutou, without a single magic circuit nor Crest to her name, steps inside London’s British Museum looking about as much of a tourist as everyone else there.

If figuring out where the entrance to the Clock Tower was is supposed to be the homework, she believes it. It takes a lot of wandering around lost to find an area where the temperature in the air is just slightly off from what it should be. The only good thing is that what with being in a museum, wandering around lost looks normal.

There’s a lot of badgering involved just to get inside the Clock Tower proper, let alone gaining access to Touko’s room. Why they’d keep a room for someone who hasn’t been in years—and is on the run from them, for God’s sake—she couldn’t begin to understand. Frankly, she doesn’t want to. Yet another backwards practice from these backwards people. Naturally, they don’t believe her to be a proper magus, not to mention the famed Touko Aozaki’s apprentice.

It suits her just as well; she would never claim to be a “proper” magus in the first place.

Azaka slips on her salamander glove and smiles. She’ll make sure that they understand that.


End file.
